


Cursed

by DottyDot



Series: How It Could Happen [11]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, jon is king of the 7 kingdoms, jonsa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-06-07 17:50:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19474252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DottyDot/pseuds/DottyDot
Summary: He pulled her into his arms. She did not resist, fighting back her tears she choked out her words, “Don't love me Jon, it will kill you.”





	Cursed

He was standing before her, a man from her songs, King of the Seven Kingdoms, savior of Westeros, asking her the question she had always dreamt a prince would ask, but she was no longer that girl. She did not suffer delusions; she had learned the cost of love, and she loved him too well to accept.

He was holding her hand, his cheeks were slightly redder than was the norm, but he had declared himself, asked for her hand, and was waiting for her to accept. To her shame, she had given him no indication that she wouldn’t, but she couldn’t possibly. She could not do this to him.

“No, Jon. Not this. I will help you. We will find a better woman for you than me.” She met his eyes, his grief at her words reflecting her own feelings.

“There is no one else.” He managed to say, slowly, gruffly, still holding her hand.

She withdrew it from him, finding her resolve was impossible to maintain while he touched her, knowing it would still be difficult as long as he looked at her in that way. That way he always looked at her. Reverence, annoyance, confusion, love. She turned away, staring blankly at the wall, the floor, anything but him.

“Not now,” she said, hating each word as it came to her tongue, “but in time, we will find an equally suitable match.”

He straightened his back, moving to a window, never one to anything unbidden to her, he could not even approach her when she made it clear she preferred distance. Spring had come to the North, the blossoms on the trees, the grass emerging where the snow had thinned, it taunted him with the possibility of life after the dead of winter, life that he was being denied.

He had permitted himself to believe, to hope, and it was cruel to now lose the only good thing that his parentage could have given him. He did not want a kingdom, he did not want a different father or name, but he wanted Sansa. And he knew she wanted him too. Her behavior while Daenerys was in Winterfell was proof enough. Not that she had spoken any words about it, but he had felt her contained rage, seen her tightly reigned in jealousy. Yes, she felt the same way.

He continued to stare out the window even when speaking to her. “I don’t want to marry you because you’re suitable, convenient, or strategic. I want to marry you because I want you with me. I can’t do this without you.”

“I will be there every step of the way, but I cannot marry you.”

“Why not? Tell me one reason why you can’t bring yourself to wed me.”

Sansa’s hands grasped her worktable, her fingers searching for something to busy herself with. Habitually proficient at deception, she could not find it within herself to be convincing when it came to mislead Jon. “I do not want to.”

“That’s a lie.” He was not angry, he was relieved to know it. He came to her, reaching a hand out to touch hers, and turn her. She did not want to look at him or allow him to look at her, but she could not refuse. Tears came to her eyes, but he still spoke. “Why do you lie to me? You love me as I love you.”

“I am so tired of loving. Everything dies in the end. Everything I love is killed by another love.”

“The wars are over, I’m king, I’ll protect you.”

“It isn’t me I’m worried for. It’s you, any children I might have. It’s--it is a curse to love me, Jon. Lady loved me, and father killed Lady. Father loved me, and Joffrey killed father. Joffrey promised to love me, the Tyrells killed him. Margaery professed to love me, and Cersei killed her. Petyr loved me, and I had Arya kill him. Everything I touch or that touches me dies. They’re all dead.”

“Sansa, that’s—none of that was your—”

  
“Shae loved me, and Tyrion killed her. I didn’t know that, I almost—I cared about him in a way. He was kind to me when no one else had been, but then he brought a conqueror to Westeros and burned hundreds of thousands of people before he was burned himself. My second husband tried to kill you, and he did kill Rickon, so I fed him to his dogs.”

“It isn’t—"  
  
“Mother and Robb loved me, and they were killed. Bran loved me, but Bran is no more. You and Arya are the only ones left, and I can’t lose you.”

He pulled her into his arms. She did not resist, fighting back her tears she choked out her words, “Don't love me Jon, it will kill you.”

“Sansa, Sansa, _Sansa_.” He was too gentle, too good, too kind, after everything, it was too much. She sobbed, her voice pitching higher and higher, choking out more of her confession of the darkness of what she was. “Everything I touch with love is poisoned. My love is death. I loved mother and Robb, killed by the family of my first husband. My first betrothed gave the order for father’s death. I couldn't save anyone even when I tried. _None of them_. I couldn't prevent their deaths. Loving them feels like a punishment from the gods. I loved you, and you left, and you almost died.”

“I’m here, Sansa. I’m alive.”

“What if loving me is a curse? What if anyone who loves me—"  
  
Jon's fingers mingled with her own, so accustomed to the feel of her, and she to him, that neither noted it.  
  
"I wanted love so desperately before, when I was cut off from everything and everyone that I loved as a girl, but I don't wish loving me on anyone."  
  
"Is this the answer then? To not love?” 

“I can’t _not_ love you, Jon. You never leave me even when you’ve left. You were a shadow in my childhood that I never caught sight of, a dark edge I never could define, a person I never understood, and now, its as if you are the sun that casts everything else in shadow.”

“Sansa, you’re a part of me. Just as Winterfell will always be my home, as Longclaw is half my arm, you—”

A finger gently brushed her cheek, soothing her into looking at him. She did not want to, oh, she did not want to, but she could not stop herself. She revolved around him, even while he encircled her. Blue eyes stared into brown; there would be no denying him.

“Sansa, _you_ are all of my heart.”

“ _Please_ , couldn’t you try?” Her forehead fell to his shoulder, she was too weak to resist him, but perhaps he could still save himself.

Her pain at saying the words was no more than his upon hearing them. “What have we done to you? Have I failed you as well?”

Sansa sobbed into his shoulder, rivers dammed since girlhood broke free, but there was no relieving the anguish that her life had been.

“I would do anything to take it all back, to change it. I would do anything to give you yourself again, but I can’t do that. I can only promise you the future.”

"I am so tired of loving things and watching them die. Yet, I cannot stop." Her arms had been still at her sides and now they held onto him, and Jon knew she had given in, that her fears would not stand between them now, not with her clinging to him, not with her breath on his neck, not with her tears drying, not with her trembling lips pressing a soft kiss to his cheek.  
  
"I love you, and this,” he softly kissed her salty lips that spoke of pain and had yet to receive love. “This,” again he kissed them because she smiled, and he could not resist. He pressed another kiss to her cheek, “this” another to her brow “this,” he returned to her lips “ _this_. This is a curse I am willing to bear.”  
  



End file.
